Calgary Stampede
The Calgary Stampede is an annual rodeo, exhibition, and festival held every July in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The ten-day event, which bills itself as "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth", attracts over one million visitors per year and features one of the world's largest rodeos, a parade, midway, stage shows, concerts, agricultural competitions, chuckwagon racing, and First Nations exhibitions. In 2008, the Calgary Stampede was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
The event's roots are traced to 1886 when the Calgary and District Agricultural Society held its first fair. In 1912, American promoter Guy Weadick organized his first rodeo and festival, known as the Stampede. He returned to Calgary in 1919 to organize the Victory Stampede in honour of soldiers returning from World War I. Weadick's festival became an annual event in 1923 when it merged with the Calgary Industrial Exhibition to create the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede.
Organized by thousands of volunteers and supported by civic leaders, the Calgary Stampede has grown into one of the world's richest rodeos, one of Canada's largest festivals, and a significant tourist attraction for the city. Rodeo and chuckwagon racing events are televised across Canada. However, both have been the target of increasing international criticism by animal welfare groups and politicians concerned about particular events as well as animal rights organizations seeking to ban rodeo in general.
Calgary's national and international identity is tied to the event. It is known as the "Stampede City", carries the informal nickname of "Cowtown", and the local Canadian Football League team is called the Stampeders. The city takes on a party atmosphere during Stampede: office buildings and storefronts are painted in cowboy themes, residents don western wear, and events held across the city include hundreds of pancake breakfasts and barbecues.
History
The Calgary and District Agricultural Society was formed in 1884 to promote the town and encourage farmers and ranchers from eastern Canada to move west. The society held its first fair two years later, attracting a quarter of the town's 2,000 residents. By 1889, it had acquired land on the banks of the Elbow River to host the exhibitions, but crop failures, poor weather, and a declining economy resulted in the society ceasing operations in 1895. The land passed briefly to future Prime Minister R. B. Bennett who sold it to the city. The area was called Victoria Park, after Queen Victoria, and the newly formed Western Pacific Exhibition Company hosted its first agricultural and industrial fair in 1899.The exhibition grew annually, and in 1908 the Government of Canada announced that Calgary would host the federally funded Dominion Exhibition that year. Seeking to take advantage of the opportunity to promote itself, the city spent C$145,000 to build six new pavilions and a racetrack. It held a lavish parade as well as rodeo, horse racing, and trick roping competitions as part of the event. The exhibition was a success, drawing 100,000 people to the fairgrounds over seven days despite an economic recession that afflicted the city of 25,000.
Guy Weadick, an American trick roper who participated in the Dominion Exhibition as part of the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Real Wild West Show, returned to Calgary in 1912 in the hopes of establishing an event that more accurately represented the "wild west" than the shows he was a part of. He initially failed to sell civic leaders and the Calgary Industrial Exhibition on his plans, but with the assistance of local livestock agent H. C. McMullen, Weadick convinced businessmen Pat Burns, George Lane, A. J. McLean, and A. E. Cross to put up $100,000 to guarantee funding for the event. The Big Four, as they came to be known, viewed the project as a final celebration of their life as cattlemen. The city built a rodeo arena on the fairgrounds and over 100,000 people attended the six-day event in September 1912 to watch hundreds of cowboys from Western Canada, the United States, and Mexico compete for $20,000 in prizes. The event generated $120,000 in revenue and was hailed as a success.
Weadick set about planning the 1913 Stampede, promoting the event across North America. However, the Big Four were not interested in hosting another such event. Businessmen in Winnipeg convinced Weadick to host his second Stampede in their city, but the show failed financially. A third attempt held in New York State in 1916 suffered the same fate. Weadick returned to Calgary in 1919 where he gained the support of E. L. Richardson, the general manager of the Calgary Industrial Exhibition. The two convinced numerous Calgarians, including the Big Four, to back the "Great Victory Stampede" in celebration of Canada's soldiers returning from World War I.
Calgary Exhibition and Stampede
While the 1919 Stampede was successful, it was again held as a one-time event. Richardson was convinced that it could be a profitable annual event but found little support for the concept within the board of directors of the Calgary Industrial Exhibition. However, declining attendance and mounting financial losses forced the exhibition board to reconsider Richardson's proposals at their 1922 annual meeting. Richardson proposed merging the two events on a trial basis. Weadick agreed, and the union created the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede.The combined event was first held in 1923. Weadick encouraged the city's residents to dress in western clothes and decorate their businesses in the spirit of the "wild west". Civic leaders truly supported the event for the first time: Mayor George Webster followed the costume suggestion and allowed downtown roads to be closed for two hours each morning of the six-day event to accommodate street parties. The new sport of chuckwagon racing was introduced and proved immediately popular. 138,950 people attended and the event earned a profit. Over 167,000 people attended in 1924 and the success guaranteed that the Stampede and Exhibition would be held together permanently.
Attendance grew annually throughout the 1920s, peaking at 258,496 in 1928, but the onset of the Great Depression resulted in attendance declines and financial losses. After consecutive years of losses in 1930 and 1931, the exhibition board was forced to make cutbacks, a decision that strained the relationship between the board and Weadick. Furthering the divide was Weadick's growing resentment of the board's control of what he considered his event. The issue came to a head in 1932 when Weadick and Richardson engaged in a loud argument over the situation, ending with Weadick's threat to quit entirely. One month later, the exhibition board announced that it had relieved him of his duties. Angered by the decision, Weadick sued the exhibition board for $100,000, citing breach of contract and unfair dismissal. His claim was upheld in courts, but he was awarded only $2,750 plus legal fees. Embittered by the events, Weadick remained at odds with the board for 20 years until he was invited to the 1952 Stampede as an honoured guest and parade marshal.
At least seven movies were filmed at the Stampede by 1950. The most profitable, the 1925 silent film The Calgary Stampede, used footage from the rodeo and exposed people across North America to the event. Hollywood stars and foreign dignitaries were attracted to the Stampede; Bob Hope and Bing Crosby each served as parade marshals during the 1950s, while Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip made their first of two visits to the event as part of their 1959 tour of Canada. The Queen also opened the 1973 Stampede.
Expansion
The discovery of the Leduc No. 1 oil well in 1946 and major reserves in the Turner Valley area southwest of the city ushered in a period of growth and prosperity. Calgary was transformed from an agricultural community into the oil and gas capital of Canada. The city's population nearly doubled between 1949 and 1956, and Calgary's immigrant population not only embraced the Stampede, but encouraged friends and family in their home towns to do the same. The 1950s represented the golden age of the Calgary Stampede.Attendance records were broken nearly every year in the 1950s and overall attendance increased by 200,000 from 1949 to 1959. The growth necessitated expansion of the exhibition grounds. The 7,500-seat Stampede Corral was completed in 1950 as the largest indoor arena in Western Canada. It housed the Calgary Stampeders hockey team, which was operated by the Board of Governors and won the Western Hockey League championship in 1954. Acts such as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and Louis Armstrong played the Corral, although the arena's poor acoustics were a frequent concern to organizers and patrons.
Improvements were made to the grandstand and the race track was rebuilt in 1954. The Big Four Building, named in honour of the Stampede's benefactors, opened in 1959 to serve as the city's largest exhibition hall in the summer, and was converted into a 24-sheet curling facility each winter. The improvements failed to alleviate all the pressures growth had caused: chronic parking shortages and inability to accommodate demand for tickets to the rodeo and grandstand shows continued.
Attendance continued to grow throughout the 1960s and 1970s, topping 500,000 for the first time in 1962 and reaching 654,000 in 1966. Organizers expanded the event from six days to nine in 1967 and then to ten the following year. The Stampede exceeded one million visitors for the first time in 1976. The park, meanwhile, continued to grow. The Round-Up Centre opened in 1979 as the new exhibition hall, and the Olympic Saddledome was completed in 1983. The Saddledome replaced the Corral as the city's top sporting arena, and both facilities hosted hockey and figure skating events at the 1988 Winter Olympics.
Maintaining the traditional focus on agriculture and western heritage remained a priority for the Calgary Stampede as the city grew into a major financial and oil hub in Western Canada. "Aggie Days", a program designed to introduce urban schoolchildren to agriculture was introduced in 1989 and proved immediately popular. A ten-year expansion plan called Horizon 2000 was released in 1990 detailing plans to grow Stampede Park into a year-round destination for Calgarians; an updated plan was released in 2004. The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede organization dropped the word "exhibition" from its title in 2007, and has since been known simply as the Calgary Stampede. Attendance has plateaued around 1.2 million since 2000, however the Stampede set an attendance record of 1,409,371 while celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2012.